[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 112 (Friday, August 12, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         REVOLVING DOOR JUSTICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Collins] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I want to begin my remarks 
today and refer back to a 1-minute speech that I gave on this floor 
March 4, 1993. Leading into this 1-minute speech was the 2 previous 
days. On each of the 2 previous days to this March 4 date, I came to 
the well of this House to deliver a 1-minute speech each of those days. 
The first day I referred my remarks not only to the Speaker but also to 
the President, and the Speaker challenged me and told me that I must 
refer all remarks to him. So I was out of order that day with those 
remarks as a freshman and unknowing to all of the rules.
  The second day that I came to the well to give a 1-minute speech, I 
thought I was in order by reading excerpts from a letter from a 
constituent from Peachtree City, GA. In reading that letter and 
excerpts from that letter, the Speaker again hit the gavel and called 
my words out of order.
  So the third day, not to be outdone, I came back to this well of the 
House for a 1-minute speech, and that 1-minute speech went something 
like this, Madam Speaker:

       Mr. Speaker, during this time on each of the past 2 days I 
     have stood in this well and referred to letters and phone 
     calls that I have received from people throughout the Third 
     District of Georgia. I expressed their concerns, their fears, 
     and their definition of the character of those of us who are 
     involved in their Government.
       On each of those 2 days the Chair questioned my remarks and 
     referred them to the Parliamentarian.

                             {time}   1540

  ``Mr. Speaker, I differed with that questioning.
  ``Mr. Speaker, I will be out of order the day that I do not express 
the views of those who have sent me here to represent them.
  ``Mr. Speaker, I will be out of order the day I fail to carry through 
with the promises that I made when I asked those same people to send me 
here to represent them.
  ``Mr. Speaker, I will be out of order when I listen to the 
bureaucrats inside this Beltway instead of the people of the Third 
District of Georgia.''
  Madam Speaker, I wanted to refer to that out-of-order speech prior to 
speaking a little bit about the crime bill and the vote on the rule 
pertaining to the crime bill that took place here in this House 
yesterday, because the vote that I cast was a reflection of that out-
of-order speech. It was a reflection of promises I had made when I was 
seeking this office. It was a reflection of the phone calls, the 
letters, the personal contact and the correspondence that I have 
received from the people of the Third District of Georgia.
  Madam Speaker, when I received those correspondence or those contacts 
I did not ask those people questions other than listening to their 
requests, their comments. I only answered questions. I did not ask them 
what religion they were, I did not ask them what party they belonged 
to, I never ask them what race they are. I just listened to their 
comments, and that is the vote that I cast yesterday on the rule 
pertaining to the crime bill.
  But Madam Speaker, we can pass a crime bill in this House, and 
truthfully we should pass a crime bill. But we need to pass a good 
crime bill. We need to pass a crime bill that will actually address the 
problem, and that is the problems of the criminal. Get criminals off 
the streets. We need to address it in an area and in a way that imposes 
punishment, a deterrent. Many may think or may even be used as 
scapegoats, but if they do wrong, they deserve punishment, no matter 
what their personal thoughts.
  But in order to address crime and crime prevention, I think we need 
to focus in, too, on some of the cases of crime and where a crime 
resolves, what it is resolved around. Often times that is in the area 
of poverty. Financial conditions of a person or a family would lead 
someone or entice someone to do wrong. Poverty areas are areas where 
crime is rampant, such as detected by the fact that if you follow 
welfare spending you also follow spending on crime, and often these 
areas of poverty are also areas of welfare. Those people, a lot of 
those people who live there are impoverished, they have no hope. They 
see no hope, they see no promise. They see a community of people that 
just like them live with no hope. They see other neighborhoods on the 
TV and hear about it on the radio and read about it in the media that 
also have no hope.
  Why do they have no hope? Again it is financial. Again it is an area 
we need to address. I think we need to address, it with jobs, job 
opportunities, something that gives them hope, something that gives 
independence.
  We can do that. But we do not need to do it with government, 
government jobs. Government jobs are taxpayer payroll jobs. There is no 
hope in a government job as such, because government jobs are temporary 
jobs, and that is the reason, because it is temporary, there is no 
permanence to it. We need to turn to the private sector, and we need to 
encourage the private sector to go into these communities, these urban 
areas, and not only urban areas but rural areas and establish 
manufacturing, establish businesses that will create jobs and provide 
jobs and provide hope for those in those impoverished areas. And we can 
do that. That is not only the job of this House, but it is something 
that this House should and must do.
  There are a couple of areas of the crime bill that I want to refer to 
other than just that area that was referred to yesterday quite often as 
social spending. One is the area of the provision that provides for 
100,000 additional cops on the streets. That is a provision that sounds 
good. It is a provision that is supported by many people. Why is it 
supported by so many? Because when they see a cop on the beat, whether 
he is walking, or whether he is in his patrol car or on his motorcycle, 
it gives them a sense of security, because there is someone in the area 
that is one of the good guys, the police.
  But I question whether or not those 100,000 policemen are really 
again just a dead-end effort, because the funding for those policemen 
will fall far short, because there again it is temporary funding. The 
additional or continued policing by those cops who this encourages the 
hiring of will have to be picked up by those local entities. I know 
first hand and have had experience in that area. As a country 
commissioner in Butts County, GA, some 15 years or 16 years ago, there 
was a program, encouraged by the Federal Government, to hire deputy 
sheriffs, additional police, and for a small county and a small budget 
we took advantage of it, advantage of what we thought was a good thing. 
The only thing was it was good for only awhile, because the funds ran 
out. Then we as county commissioners and the governing body of that 
county had to fund those additional officers out of the treasury of 
that county.

  So I think even though it sounds good, and it is good, it is good to 
have those people on the street, it is a little bit of false 
advertising from this House to say that we are furnishing the money, 
all of the money for those 100,000 policemen.
  Another area that I want to address in the crime bill that was very 
controversial was that of the gun control provisions and what makes it 
so hard to swallow for many people across this country, and a lot of 
those in the Third District of Georgia. It is not the fact that we were 
eliminating through that procedure some guns. The real problem is that 
provision only pertained to a legal transfer of weapons, a legal 
transfer. It would stop the manufacture and prohibit the transfer of 
certain weapons. But it did not pertain and will not pertain and cannot 
pertain, and you will not pass any legislation in this House or in the 
other body that will pertain to the black market. And there are 
millions of weapons in that black market. They are passed, they are 
sold, they are given daily, and no legislation that we adopt will 
pertain to that weapon.
  True, we can pass legislation that pertains to that person who is 
usually and normally a criminal that passes that weapon.

                              {time}  1650

  Back several months ago when we had the Brady bill on this floor, 
unlike this time with the crime bill, and I did not receive any phone 
calls from any of the people from the White House or the Cabinet, but 
when the Brady bill was on the floor, I received a call from Ms. Reno, 
and I was very pleased that she took the time to call me. I was 
impressed that she would call me, and she called to ask me to support 
the Brady bill and to oppose all amendments to it.
  I told Ms. Reno I really appreciated her call, but I could not do 
that, because the people in the Third District of Georgia had asked me 
to oppose the Brady bill and support all amendments to it. It was not, 
as I informed her, the 3-day, 5-day, 7-day, 15-day, whatever the delay 
might be, that was not the emphasis; the problem and the concern of the 
people of the Third District of Georgia was this in the first step, the 
first step toward prohibition of weapons altogether.
  Madam Speaker, you know, those people of the Third District of 
Georgia were right. Because immediately following the Brady bill came 
the ban on the assault weapons, the ban on the legal transfer of 
weapons, again, no ban on the black market and the transfer in that 
area. We need to rethink that and stop punishing and trying to deter or 
prevent law-abiding, legal purchases by people who are not of the 
criminal element.
  Madam Speaker, again, I go back to the fact that we can, and we 
should, pass a crime bill. We should pass one that had the provision in 
it that I really liked in this one that the dealing with the fact that 
we were going to assist States with the construction of prisons, and 
they do need help. Many States are short of funds for the purpose of 
prison construction.
  Fortunately, Georgia has built several prisons in recent years. My 
first year in the Georgia State senate, the first budget that came to 
the floor of the senate, there were no prisons included, but after 
several members of that senate body approached the appropriations 
committees, we were fortunate enough to include, before the 
finalization of that budget, some five prisons. All five have been 
built and opened, and along with three additional, along with 
additional boot camps, boot camps again, part of this crime bill that 
we are looking at that is in conference.
  A Judge Kenneth Kilpatrick from Clayton County, GA, a State superior 
court judge there, sent information to Gov. Zell Miller pertaining to 
criminals, voicing the concern of many superior court judges in Georgia 
about the fact that criminals were being released from prison far 
before their sentences were completed or even long before even half of 
their sentences were completed. I have the package that Judge 
Kilpatrick sent to the Governor, Governor Zell Miller, and I want to 
read just two or three quotes from this package words and comments of 
Judge Kilpatrick.
  First of all, and to quote him, he says, ``Do not get hung up on the 
words `violence' and `one-third.' Violent offenders ought to be put 
away, but so should burglars, auto thieves, forgers, drug dealers, 
habitual offenders, and other criminals who are not normally called 
violent.'' And, again, he says, ``Why should anyone sent to a 
penitentiary get out after serving only 33 percent of their sentence?'' 
That was the one-third he referred to. ``One-third has become a 
buzzword that lacks common sense. Make three-fourths the law, build the 
prisons, and watch the fear leave our streets.'' he went on to tell the 
Governor, ``Until we face the fact that there are several thousand 
predators and punks walking the streets who must be incarcerated, 
neither we nor our property will be safe.''
  And, finally, he referred to Cool Hand Luke in the movie, and to 
quote Cool Hand Luke, ``What we have here is a failure to 
communicate.'' The judge says to the governor, ``Well, what we have 
here is a failure to rehabilitate. Goodness knows they have had their 
chances. We need to incarcerate.''
  I want to read just about, well, four particular cases out of a 
number of cases that the judge cited, and what had upset him about the 
early release of prisoners. A John Michael Conn, convicted of vehicular 
homicide in the first degree on July 25, 1991. He was drunk, 0.16 
percent alcohol blood content, when he hit and killed a 13-year-old boy 
riding on a bicycle. He received a split sentence, 15 years, split to 
serve 8, 7 on probation. Mr. Conn was paroled December 9, 1993, serving 
less than 18 months of his sentence, 13 percent of the sentence 
rendered.
  Another one was John Frederic Freeman, convicted of possession with 
intent to distribute cocaine in September 1992. The pardons and parole 
board said Mr. Freeman will be released in March 1994, serving 18 
months of a 10-year sentence.
  Shane Dolan Knight, convicted of at least 18 counts of burglary and 
forgery in the first degree, given a sentence of 10 years, released 
after 22 months, serving 18 percent of his 10-year sentence, and last, 
Karlston R. Blackstock, convicted of three counts of burglary sentenced 
to 15 years, released in 48 months, serving 27 percent of his sentence.
  No wonder we cannot get control over crime.
  Madam Speaker, I want to refer to an article that was in the National 
Review of June 13, 1994, written by Wesley Smith as he talks about in 
other areas how the Federal courts and the Federal Government have 
intervened with States in the operation of prisons, which has led to an 
enormous amount of lawsuits filed in Federal courts by inmates.
  In 1966 there were 218 such lawsuits; in 1993 there were 53,000 such 
lawsuits. I think that is an area we need to address also, Madam 
Speaker.
  I am placing that in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  Madam Speaker, I say we need to assist States, but we also need to 
assure that there will be severe and swift punishment.
  We had an opportunity during the debate and the amendments offered 
here on this floor to change the habeas corpus laws, limit the number 
of habeas corpus appeals at the Federal level. We chose not to do so. 
We only chose to increase the number of instances where the death 
penalty can be applied at the Federal level.
  But, Madam Speaker, we do not apply the death penalty at the Federal 
level. We very seldom apply it at the State level due to the fact of 
the endless appeals that are allowed.
  Madam Speaker, I do not know about other Members of this House, but I 
have witnessed two executions in Georgia in the last 3 years, execution 
of one person who had cold-bloodedly shot and killed with a shotgun a 
police officer. Madam Speaker, it took 17 years of appeal after appeal 
to finally carry out the will of the people and the law of Georgia.

                              {time}  1700

  The second execution that I witnessed was just this spring. A person 
who had attacked two women and beat their heads off with a club.
  Again, it took 15 years to bring that person to justice. Madam 
Speaker, that is too long. The people are tired of those types of 
appeals, and it does not help the system when we carry the appeals 
process for that length of time. We must address the death penalty, the 
imposition of it, and change the laws so that we can do it in a swifter 
pattern.
  Madam Speaker, if we are going to address crime and we are going to 
address welfare reform in this Nation, we have to do them together or 
we will not get very good results either way.
  I think they ought to parallel each other, we must have tax reform, 
tax reform that will encourage people to take a risk and invest, invest 
in communities, go back to those communities to which I referred that 
we impoverished, locate businesses in those areas so that we can create 
jobs in those areas because many of those people have no way to commute 
to another area for another job.
  Madam Speaker, there are a number of things that we can do, a number 
of things that we can do jointly in this body, and it must be and it 
should be a bipartisan effort. I say it should be, it does not have to 
be a bipartisan effort; there are enough members of one party in this 
House to do any or all of these things. But if we take the time and we 
put our heads together and communicate with each other in this House, 
as Cool Hand Luke said, ``I think we are failing to communicate''--but 
we need to communicate with each other.
  Madam Speaker, when I got to the office this morning, and usually I 
am there around 7, I penned out a quick letter to the President, took 
it out to the fax machine myself and faxed it over to the White House, 
knowing I probably will never hear from it. I have sent a number of 
letters. Once in a while I will get a response, but it is not from 
President Bill Clinton, our President; it is from some staffer.

                                     House of Representatives,

                                  Washington, DC, August 12, 1994.
       Mr. President: I voted against the Rule for the Crime Bill 
     not as an anti-vote toward anyone but as a representative 
     vote for the people I represent. I am sure this is true of 
     most of us who voted No.
       Mr. President, you are faced with several options. I will 
     refer to two. First, push forwarded and oppose the public, 
     creating additional problems for Members of Congress or; 
     second, listen to those of us who are voicing the concerns of 
     constituents. To do so we must have the opportunity to 
     discuss such concerns.
       I have asked several times for such an audience but to no 
     avail.
       We, Congress, can pass a crime bill. A crime bill which 
     will address crime problems. However, it will be difficult or 
     the results will not be as positive as they should be if name 
     calling and finger-pointing continues.
       I know it is wishful thinking but I do wish I could have a 
     few minutes of your time.
           Best Regards,
                                                      Mac Collins.

  Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I want to wish you best 
regards. I know that just as soon as I hush, you are headed toward 
Florida, and I hope you have an enjoyable weekend because I am headed 
to Georgia.
  The document referred to follows:

               [From the National Review, June 13, 1994]

                            Jailhouse Blues


                          truth in sentencing

   federal judges seem infinitely solicitous of the inmates of state 
prisons, and nearly indifferent to their victims, past and future. How 
         can law-abiding citizens begin to redress the balance?

                           (By Wesley Smith)

 (Mr. Smith is deputy director of the Governors' Forum at the Heritage 
   Foundation and a member of the advisory board of the Safe Streets 
                               Alliance)

       In 1989 Kenny Parker filed suit against Nevada state 
     officials for ``cruel and unusual punishment.'' His 
     complaint? They had given him a jar of creamy peanut butter, 
     whereas he had explicitly ordered chunky. One of Parker's 
     jailmates--convicted first-degree murderer David Bean--is 
     suing the state because the jeans he was given were too 
     tight, ``causing rashes and epileptic seizures.'' Another 
     Nevada inmate, convicted child molester Chris Chapman, is 
     suing for copies of the North American Man-Boy Love 
     Association newsletter, as a matter of First Amendment 
     rights. Iowa prisoner Art Hartsock, wanting to ``see what I'm 
     missing while I'm in here,'' has demanded greater access to 
     pornography.
       These ``rights'' violations seem less constitutional than 
     comical, but they are taken seriously by the federal 
     judiciary. In 1993, the nation's prisoners filed over 53,000 
     lawsuits in federal court, generally against state 
     governments. While most cases are dismissed as frivolous, the 
     litigation explosion has cost the states hundreds of millions 
     of dollars in legal fees and in the costs of complying with 
     the courts' orders. In 1993 Nevada alone spent about $700,000 
     in direct legal costs defending against suits like Parker's.
       These legal costs, however, are dwarfed by the indirect 
     costs on society as a whole. Most governors, state attorneys, 
     and other criminal-justice officials say the prisoners'-
     rights movement is making state prisons ungovernable. And 
     federally imposed prison population caps and other decrees 
     aimed at alleviating ``overcrowding'' have forced the early 
     release of tens of thousands of violent criminals.


                            judicial tsunami

       In 1966 prisoners filed 218 suits in federal court to 
     remedy arguably inhumane treatment in federal, state, and 
     county prisons. Then the federal judiciary opened the 
     floodgates. By 1980 prisoner suits had increased twentyfold. 
     In 1993 prisoners filed 53,713 lawsuits in federal courts--
     7,615 more suits than the Federal Government filed against 
     criminals.
       By 1993, four-fifths of all state prison systems and 
     roughly one-third of the five hundred largest local jails 
     were under federal-court supervision. And the courts are 
     mostly not content to set broad guidelines for the states to 
     interpret. In Arizona, for example, federal judges tell state 
     prison officials the types of publications and typewriters 
     they must buy for prisoners and the number of law clerks they 
     must hire for the state's prison law libraries. (Delaware 
     Attorney General Charles Oberly II says such rulings mean 
     state prisoners have better access to law materials than he 
     does.)
       In South Carolina, Federal Judge James McMillan has given 
     the state orders to purchase specific recreational equipment 
     for prisoners, including three sets of horseshoe equipment, 
     three guitars, five frisbees, fifty decks of playing cards, 
     and a piano. In Alabama a federal judge orders the state to 
     provide inmates air conditioning and televisions. In other 
     states federal judges are seeing state-sponsored ``cruel and 
     unusual punishment'' in prisons lacking basketball courts, 
     weight rooms, televisions, workshops, or single-occupancy 
     cells.
       Under the guise of constitutional jurisprudence, the 
     federal judiciary has aggressively replaced the criminal-
     justice policies of the fifty states with its own. Groups 
     like the ACLU's National Prison Project argue that states 
     must treat prisoners much as they do citizens at large. 
     Federal judges have agreed; and in their pursuit to elevate 
     the legal status of prisoners to that of law-abiding people, 
     they have removed the concept of prison as punishment, and 
     with it much of the deterrent effect of imprisonment.
       Of course, prisoners have been quick to adopt this 
     distorted view of their moral and legal status. An Illinois 
     inmate demanded the right to use his cell as his place of 
     residence for conducting drug-related activities. A Nevada 
     inmate sued for the right to cross-dress, and 14 death-row 
     inmates in California sued for the right to procreate through 
     artificial insemination. Florida's Robert Procup sued when he 
     got just one bread roll on his dinner plate, and sued again 
     when prison officials failed to provide him a salad at lunch. 
     When told by ABC's John Stossel that he was, after all, being 
     punished, Procup replied, ``Nobody sentenced me to 
     punishment. They sentenced me to be separated from 
     society''--a recurring theme of the prisoner's-rights 
     movement. Procup was convicted of murder for cementing his 
     business partner into a storage shed.
       While federal judges see much decisions as principled 
     constitutionalism, most prisoners see them as a weakness that 
     demands to be exploited. Art Hartsock, the prisoner who won 
     for himself and other inmates at Anamosa State Prison the 
     right to view pornographic magazines, is now preparing for 
     another suit. His reasoning: ``Every dollar they spend 
     fighting a lawsuit is a dollar they can't spend building a 
     place to lock me up.''
       At age 15 Willie Bosket killed two New York subway riders 
     ``for the experience.'' He has also tried to kill two prison 
     guards, which is why prison officials chain him to his cell 
     door for five minutes each day before moving him. Of the 
     chaining Bosket says, ``I feel several things. I feel 
     humiliated. I feel an affront to my dignity. I feel 
     vulnerable.'' A federal court afforded him a jury trial to 
     decide whether he would continue to be chained. At his trial 
     Bosket told jurors his only regret was that he had not killed 
     the guard. He vowed to kill again.
       Most criminals show a psychology of denial for their 
     criminal actions. Nevada Deputy Attorney General Anne 
     Cathcart says criminals ``come into prison denying any 
     wrongdoing, and they are constantly presented with further 
     reasons to blame others. Unlimited access to federal courts 
     gives them an added tool to vent their anger and rebel 
     against the system.''
       This undermines rehabilitation efforts generally, as 
     prisoners quickly learn that contempt for the system is 
     rewarded. But the federal bench has even prohibited specific 
     state rehabilitation plans as violative of prisoners' rights. 
     After Governor Gerald Baliles discovered in 1986 that 85 
     percent of Virginia inmates were illiterate, he started a 
     program that linked reading proficiency to early parole. The 
     ACLU threatened suit, saying prisoners had a right to parole 
     without literacy tests, so Baliles made the program voluntary 
     and consequently much less successful. Governor Fife 
     Symington thought pornography might not be healthy for 
     Arizona inmates, many of whom are sex offenders, so he 
     decided last January to prohibit all pornographic materials 
     in the state's prisons. That sounded reasonable to Arizona 
     citizens, but Federal Judge Muecke didn't agree; he has begun 
     contempt hearings against the state.


                        each to his own religion

       Federal encroachment took a dramatic leap forward last 
     November when Congress passed the Religious Freedom 
     Restoration Act. RFRA severely limits the power of government 
     to restrict a prisoner's religious activities.
       Before RFRA, a state could restrict certain practices in 
     prison to maintain order. For instance, Illinois forbade 
     inmates belonging to Aryan Nation's religious arm, the Church 
     of Jesus Christ Christian, to distribute literature calling 
     for the extermination of Jews and blacks. In 1992 they sued 
     the state for the right to do so. Shortly after RFRA became 
     law, they amended their complaint with new-founded RFRA 
     rights. Under this new standard Illinois will almost 
     certainly lose. Susan O'Leary, deputy chief legal counsel for 
     the state, predicts that this will incite riots in Illinois 
     prisons, which have a 66 per cent black population.
       In 1987, the followers of Yahweh Ben Yahweh and his 
     ``Temple of Love'' demanded the right to distribute hate 
     literature among inmates and lost in court. They are now 
     suing again under RFRA and have already won at the district-
     court level. The Temple of Love, like Aryan Nation, is 
     seeking attorney fees and monetary damages for religious 
     rights denied them before RFRA even became law. These 
     remedies do not take into account the costs to the states of 
     hiring additional guards or building new cells to separate 
     these inmates from others for their protection.
       Even before RFRA, some federal courts were reluctant to 
     define what constitutes a genuine religion. A federal court 
     in 1974 declared The Church of the New Song a religion; this 
     church requires Harvey's Bristol Cream, filet mignon, and 
     marijuana for its religious ceremonies. In Indiana inmates 
     calling themselves the Black Gangster Disciples are claiming 
     a ``new Muslim'' status, even though prison officials believe 
     their aim is to infiltrate their gang into the older Muslim 
     group. In Colorado, inmate Robert Howard, a practicing 
     Satanist, is suing for the right to religious materials 
     including the Satanic Bible, passages of which command the 
     sacrificing of a ``preferably Christian'' female virgin and 
     the using of candles made from the fat of unbaptized babies. 
     With RFRA, states will have little discretion in restricting 
     so-called religious activities such as these in order to 
     maintain security.
       Religion-based demands for special diets are particularly 
     costly to the states. Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue del 
     Papa says providing a special religious diet winds up adding 
     65 per cent to the total cost of imprisoning one inmate. 
     California Attorney General Dan Lungren estimates that if 
     only 2 per cent of the national inmate population demands 
     special religious diets, it will cost the states at least 
     $177 million annually.
       Even if a state ultimately wins such a case, its taxpayers 
     still lose. Since RFRA allows a state to restrict a religious 
     practice only in a way that is least burdensome to the 
     prisoner, few courts will be able to dismiss frivolous claims 
     on summary judgment. Evidentiary hearings, expert witnesses, 
     and transportation of prisoners, and state's witnesses to the 
     hearings will be required to determine if the state is using 
     a ``least restrictive'' penology. And since RFRA applies 
     retroactively, cases already won by states will be 
     relitigated.
       According to a Senate staffer who worked to modify RFRA, 
     ``Congress imagined Baptist preachers holding Bible studies 
     in prison. Who could be against that? They failed to realize 
     it would be Satanists, white supremacists, and those wanting 
     better lunches that would really take advantage of RFRA 
     protections.'' Of course, the more reasonable inmate requests 
     that RFRA was aimed at protecting, like Bible classes, were 
     rarely denied. And now, since all ``religions'' will be 
     entitled to equal treatment, states will be forced to 
     eliminate legitimate religious programs in order to avoid 
     suits by other ``religious'' groups demanding equal funding.


                           The Ignored Right

       As the definition of prisoners' rights has mushroomed, 
     basic constitutional rights like personal safety have 
     actually diminished. Prisons have become more violent than 
     ever before, and America's streets have become more 
     dangerous, as federal judges force the early release of 
     violent criminals to reduce ``cruel and unusual'' 
     overcrowding.
       Although the Supreme Court in Rhodes V. Chapman declared 
     double bunking was not, per se, cruel and unusual, it 
     reaffirmed the right of the federal judiciary to decide the 
     constitutionality of state prison conditions by looking at 
     the ``totality of the circumstances.'' By the early 1980's 
     the lower federal courts had begun to set prison population 
     limits that forced the release of prisoners by the tens of 
     thousands in the following years.
       After a court in 1981 imposed a population cap in Texas 
     prisons, the state parole board increased early releases by 
     over 400 per cent with inmates serving an average of 2 months 
     for every year sentenced. This was followed by a 29 per cent 
     surge of crime in Texas during the next decade, at a time 
     when crime decreased nationally. The courts also mandated 
     population reductions in county jails in Texas and across the 
     country, forcing them to increase pre-trial releases. In Cook 
     County, Illinois, almost 30,000 accused criminals are 
     released before trial each year for this reason. Of that 
     group, 67 percent are rearrested on felony charges before 
     their cases come to trial, over 25 percent of them for 
     violent crimes.
       The personal tragedies this federal policy has created are 
     reported with numbing frequency in the nation's newspapers. 
     Last June, Loran Cole, like other ``nonviolent'' criminals, 
     was released early from a Florida prison to alleviate 
     overcrowding; he had served only 18 months of a 66-month 
     sentence for grand theft. Eight months later Cole was charged 
     with the murder of John Edwards, an 18-year-old student at 
     Florida State, and the kidnapping and rape of Edwards's 
     sister. In Texas, Michael Blair served 18 months of a 10-year 
     sentence for burglary and indecency with an 11-year-old girl 
     (his actual crime, sexual assault, had been plea-bargained 
     down). While still on parole in 1993, he raped and murdered 
     7-year-old Ashely Nicole Estell after kidnapping her from a 
     park in an upscale Dallas community. Had he served even half 
     his time, Blair would have been in prison on the day Ashley 
     and her family went to the park. Kenneth McDuff was convicted 
     and sentenced to death in 1968 for first-degree murder, for 
     killing three teenagers execution style. McDuff's death 
     sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when the Supreme 
     Court outlawed capital punishment in 1972. This made him 
     eligible for parole, which he got in 1989. Since then, he has 
     been linked to the rape and murder of four women.
       Just the threat of court-ordered releases has been enough 
     to push state parole boards to release prisoners early. 
     Between 1983 and 1993 the Georgia parole board released 
     36,006 violent and sex offenders--including 2,772 multiple 
     sex offenders--after they had served an average of 36 percent 
     of their sentences. In 1989, Governor Joe Frank Harris 
     released 13,000 ``nonviolent'' prisoners under an emergency 
     program to reduce prison populations when inmates threatened 
     federal lawsuits. Since then the Georgia parole board has 
     accelerated thousands of paroles. Although the parole board 
     insists the released prisoners were ``nonviolent,'' Clayton 
     County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Kilpatrick says the early 
     release of even nonviolent felons increases both nonviolent 
     and violent crime, because short imprisonment suggests to 
     criminals that any crime brings light punishment.
       According to Department of Justice statistics, three-
     fourths of all violent criminals convicted in 1989 were back 
     on the streets by December of 1993. Safe Streets Alliance 
     President James Wootton [see sidebar, page 41] points out 
     that 3.2 million criminals are out on parole or probation. 
     Even modest early releases have been devastating. A study in 
     Illinois in the early 1980s found that 21,000 prisoners 
     released just 3 months early committed 23 homicides, 32 
     rapes, 262 arsons, 681 robberies, 2,472 burglaries, and 2,572 
     assaults during the 3-month period. Nationally, almost one-
     third of all violent crimes are committed by criminals on 
     parole or pre-trial release. The federal courts have no 
     apparent concern for the victims, however, but focus 
     exclusively on the injustices they perceive as being 
     committed against prisoners.
       ??? reform, it should dramatically limit federal-court 
     jurisdiction over state prison administration. Article III of 
     the Constitution gives Congress this power. If senators and 
     congressmen refuse to use it, they should be held accountable 
     by the voters for the foolish decisions of the federal 
     judiciary in releasing criminals to rape and murder a second, 
     third, and fourth time.
       But there is no indication that Congress is willing to do 
     so; therefore the states themselves will need to take matters 
     into their own hands. They may be forced to confront 
     Washington, as Governor Symington is doing in defying the 
     federal court order that allows pornography in Arizona's 
     prisons.
       Governors like Symington, Mike Leavitt of Utah, and George 
     Allen of Virginia, and hundreds of other state and local law-
     enforcement officials, see the current fight over control of 
     state prisons as a small part of a larger problem. The 
     federal judiciary's activism stems from an abstract theory of 
     individual rights that disregards the rights of the 
     community. Deliberately detached from the effects of their 
     decisions on society, federal judges have acted as if they 
     intended to strip communities of any power to defend 
     themselves.
       As recently elected Virginia Attorney General James Gilmore 
     has said, it is the state's responsibility to make streets 
     ``as safe for our children as it was for us when we were 
     growing up.'' The success of that agenda will be determined 
     in large measure by the power of the states to free 
     themselves from Washington's control.

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